Oh, how the mighty fall (in love)
by Taisi
Summary: Casey grits his teeth, validated by the blood in his lips and the ache in his arms, and the reckless, resolute way Raph loves him.
1. radio silence

A/N: I'm keeping my drabble collection purely gen fic, so here's where I'll stick all my Rasey oneshots. Enjoy!

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"Happened after that building blew up a few days ago. Dad dragged me to the hospital when he figured out I wasn't sleepin' through all my wake-up calls just to be a dick. The doc said it's _trauma-related_ ," Casey says, half-smiling, 'cause ain't _that_ a joke. But none of his friends find the same humor in it, if their alarmed expressions are any indication. Casey shrugs one shoulder, and keeps talking into the silence, even though he _hates_ how he can't hear himself. "It ain't forever. Probably won't last the week. Whatever."

And they all start talking, all at once it looks like, and their ordinarily subtle body language is super exaggerated now with how hard they're emoting, agitated and concerned-looking. Casey tries not to roll his eyes— _really_ tries—and pulls his headphones back on, ignoring them as blatantly as he can. The cord's plugged into his phone, just so it doesn't drag across the sewer floor while he's here, but it ain't like he's listening to music. Everything's quiet, like his head's buried in a big ball of cotton, and he shoves his hands in his pockets.

"Could be worse," he says, just because he can't hear how stupid it sounds out loud. "Least I ain't blind."

With his track record, something like this was bound to happen sooner or later. He'd had his fair share of concussions and broken bones, knew how to take a beating after playing hockey for so long, _knew_ tagging along with a handful of ninjas to take on a crimelord wasn't gonna be easy, or safe, or smart.

Even knowing all that, though, this _sucks._

He had no idea how much he'd miss hearing stuff until that explosion that rocked the whole world into dead air—like an interrupted radio station, that sudden lack of noise that makes your skin crawl—and now, now he was humming his favorite song in his head, trying to make up for the way the silence wanted to choke him.

It feels like being underwater, everything muted and suspended, and as isolated as he already feels from most people on most days, this is worse.

A wide hand curls around his shoulder, and Casey looks up into bright eyes. Raph's face is sharp and dark, and he doesn't say a word, but Casey can tell he's pissed off. And he's pretty sure he knows why.

"What, I shoulda told you sooner? I don't owe you shit, bro."

But damn if he isn't a coward, breaking eye contact and glancing past Raph into the dark expanse of the rest of the lair. Honestly, Casey wanted to tell him _first_. Wanted—more than it made sense to, really—to get rid of worried dad and worried sister and crawl down the first manhole he found on the way home from the hospital. Wanted to find Raph and _fight_ him, wanted to rant and scream into this shitty _void_ and make himself heard, prove to someone else that he still existed even in the silence.

He had been— _afraid_ , damn it, of Raph looking at him with the same hooded pity his family ( _other_ family) had. He didn't know what he'd do if Raph touched him softly, like Casey was _fragile_ now—

But the hand on Casey's shoulder tightens, hard enough to leave a mark, and then Raph is cupping his chin and yanking his face back to front and center. He's scowling like thunder, and close enough that he's taking up Casey's whole line of sight—then he's impossibly closer, and dragging Casey down into one of those bruises kisses that left a mark for days.

Casey has seen Raph be gentle. When he carried Leo home after a rough fight, or cradled Don's head above the toilet while he was sick, or poked at all of Mikey's ticklish spots just to make the kid laugh at the end of a bad day. He's seen Raph seep tea carefully for Splinter, and wrap an arm around April during a sad movie, and talk softly to Spike when he didn't know anyone was listening.

Raph can be gentle, but now—in front of his brothers, and April, and his dad—he's thumbing the corner of Casey's mouth that will bruise, hands _hard_ where he's holding him, because that's what Casey needs. And Casey grits his teeth, grateful and glad, and validated by the blood in his lips and the ache in his arms, and the reckless, resolute way Raph loves him.

"Fuck you, man," but he's got a fistful of those tattered red mask tails, and an arm around the top of Raph's shell, and the asshole is smirking when Casey kisses him back.


	2. not you

"Jesus Christ, Raph," you say for probably the tenth time, no less vehemently than the first. "I'm so fuckin' sorry."

You press a cold compress to the bruises on his jaw, and he drips blood onto your sheets. His eyes are bright when they find yours in the dark, and you're about to do something really, really stupid if he doesn't stop bleeding all over your stuff, and _looking_ at you like that.

"Don't be a bigger idiot than usual, Jones," he says, rough and low, because it's three a.m. and your dad is asleep right next door. "You got nothin' to be sorry for."

"Have you looked in a mirror? They really fucked you up. Fuck them. All you were doin' was tryin' to help, who gives a shit if you're green?"

When you shake your flannel sleeve down over your free hand, and press your covered palm against the persistent trickle of blood from the side of his mouth, you're reminded suddenly of a feral cat you used to feed behind your old apartment, the one that used to hide from everyone else but run to meet you, in kind of the same way Raph is leaning into your hands.

Shit, shit, shit.

You scowl to make up for how you're holding him, your hands almost framing the sides of his face. But he's staining the sleeve of your shirt with blood from the corner of his wide, crooked grin, and he covers both of your hands with both of his– and if _he_ doesn't mind, _you_ sure as hell don't.

"People _suck_ ," you tell him firmly, and he chuckles.

"Not all of 'em," he says, shrugging a little, smiling in a way that's going to stay with you for days, in a way you want to bottle and keep on your shelf. "Not you."


End file.
